On this day in Latinx history: The Maria Bueno Slam

Playing on the pristine tennis courts of the West Side Tennis Club in Queens, New York, Maria Bueno and partner Darlene Hard easily dismantled England’s Ann Haydon and Deidre Catt, 6-1, 6-1, in the U.S. National Championship women’s doubles final on Sept. 17, 1960.

Almost three weeks earlier at the National Doubles tennis championships, Bueno and Hard did a practice run on the Haydon-Catt pairing. As The Boston Globe described it, Hard and Bueno picked Catt and Haydon apart in less than 30 minutes in front of a “near-capacity crowd, which helped set an all-time attendance record for doubles at Longwood.” The score was the same as the U.S. Nationals, 6-1, 6-1.

By winning the fourth and final doubles championship on the Grand Slam tour, Bueno became the first woman to secure the women’s double trophy at the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open in a calendar year.

The Brazilian won three of her four titles with Hard, who upset Bueno in the 1960 U.S. National Championship women’s singles title match. Bueno won her other doubles trophy with Christine Truman.

In 1959, Bueno was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year, earned the World No. 1 ranking and became the first non-North American woman to win both Wimbledon and the U.S. National Championships in the same year. Brazil’s president threw her a ticker-tape parade in São Paulo.

Bueno finished with 19 major titles: seven in singles, 11 in doubles and one in mixed doubles. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1978.